The weblog of Norman Geras

April 18, 2011

Green and single-minded 2 (by Martin Morgan)

What is it about being 'green' that inclines so significant a proportion of those who are that towards, ummm, a special focus on the Jewish state?... I don't see any intrinsic connection between the one preoccupation and the other: the environment and a belief in Israel's so singular delinquency... Or have I missed something and there are Green-backed boycotts of several countries?

You're right that they don't back comprehensive boycotts of other countries, so their Israel fixation looks initially like that of the rest of the unthinking left.

The difference, if there is one, may lie in the Green interest in authenticity. From Edward Goldsmith onwards there has been a strong anti-modernist tendency in the Green movement - a concern for the protection of indigenous ways of life, distrust of global organisations and globalisation, and an emphasis on the degrading effects of industrial society on agrarian, artisan traditions.

The villains here are colonialism, international banking, big corporations, industrial farming and the 'soulless' factory line.

The far-right share these concerns, in particular the 'integralist' lineages from the Action Française and Gregor Strasser. Action Française's Charles Maurras was for ever railing in defence of the 'pays réel', the authentic small-town, rural France, and Alain de Benoist and the French New Right (Nouvelle Droite) have picked up on this in their critique of American capitalism. De Benoist also echoes ecological concerns, and calls for the separation of communities and opposes egalitariansim in order to preserve certain human cultures.

There is also a sentimental belief in the nobility of a simpler, pastoral life.

Pull all of this together in the general atmosphere of suspicion of Israel on the know-nothing left, and you can see how Israel looks especially wicked:

1. It is an artificial, 'European' colonialist implant in an authentic, appealingly noble, rural-artisan Arab culture. See also the recent (and also very old) pseudo-scientific attacks on the Middle Eastern origins of the Jews and even the Semitic nature of Modern Hebrew (Shlomo Sand on the 'invention' of the Jews, Paul Wexler on 'Slavic' Hebrew, Koestler on the Khazar myth - all the better for 'anti-Zionists' if some of the authors are Jews).

2. It is a model of capitalist development in contrast to the rural-artisan etc etc (ignoring its socialist/communitarian origins in the kibbutz/trade-union movements, of course). See a recent Guardian article on battery farming in Israel.

3. It can only survive by 'destroying' Arabs/Palestinians through 'genocide', theft of water, poisoning the air etc. So Israel's existence threatens the very survival of another, more authentic way of life.

4. The references you find in the left/right/Green 'anti-Zionist' movement to the 'authenticity' of anti-Zionist Jews like the Neturei Karta and even idylls about the somehow more Jewish nature of Diaspora life and Yiddish are part of this.

5. Israel promotes Western and in particular American values in one of the few parts of the urbanised world perceived to be resistant to US/multinational corporate penetration.

6. And of course there are the now mainstream background assumptions about international Jewish influence in finance, US policy-making etc that trade as the 'Israel Lobby', and the disproportionate amount of news coverage Israel gets compared to other 'issue' countries around the world.

All of these factors, I would say, help to 'green' the anti-Israel camp. (Martin Morgan).